Transcription
A SENATOR: Thank you, Mr. President. I move to dispense from the quorum call.
The Clerk: Thank you, Mr. President. The President of the United States says that the United States is at war. In the past seven weeks, President Trump has ordered U.S. forces to take military action to destroy 10 boats in international waters. That has resulted in the death of more than 40 possible drug couriers. President Trump has also said that at war with the narcoterrorists. He's also said that he's taken steps to escalate military action against Venezuela and Colombia and is sending warships and fighter planes to their coast. He's also opening tossing around threats of air strikes against targets on sea and on land.
Now, the questions before us, as the United States Senate, are clear, and they are urgent. Are the President's actions steering the American people into yet another undeclared war, and would it be legal for the President to expand this war to the sovereign territories of countries in South America, as he's now threatening to do? Mr. President, the clear answer is no. This President, no President has the legal authority, without congressional authorization, to take America into military conflict. There has been no credible legal experts that have defended the President's actions, with one exception, of course, and that is the Attorney General, who has provided an opinion to the President. We are told but have not seen that what he's doing is legal. That's without precedent. It's without precedent for the top legal official in this country to give an opinion that it's legal to go to war without congressional authorization. But it's clearly the legal advice the President wanted and won't even share with the members of the United States Senate.
The President, of course, seems to be basing the legality of these actions on -- that drug traffickers are terrorists. We hate what drug traffickers do, but it's also based on the legal opinion, the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department that we're told gives legal cover for the President to do what is clearly beyond the authority of a chief executive. We know nothing about this opinion that all in this body have called for to be released that are doing the right thing.
Mr. Welch: We know that under the U.S. Constitution, the President does not have authority to start a war without congressional authorization. It is an Article 1 responsibility of the Congress of the United States, and there's a reason for that that's so very important. For we are going to ask, with the authority of Congress and the executive, men and women to go to war on behalf of defending our countries, that profoundly important decision being made by Congress but is putting in harm's way the men and women who serve in the military, there should be a debate and there should be a vote, there should be responsibility, and there should be accountability. Simply the determination by the President that he's attacking a group of what he calls terrorists, narcoterrorists, does not by itself make it legal under the Constitution.
You know, some people may say, what's the big deal? These are bad folks. Drugs are terrible. We all agree with that. But it's not up to the President to determine whether we go to war. It's up to Congress. Should we be going to war with Venezuela? You know, all of us are on board, Republicans and Democrats, with the fight against narcotics, illegal drugs, fentanyl in particular, which mostly enter the U.S. through Mexico and on the Pacific Ocean. Our wreaking -- they are wreaking havoc on our communities. It's happened in Vermont, as well as West Virginia, Idaho, Florida, Montana, every other state, our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers are struggle with a -- are struggling with addiction and dying from overdose. Yes, this is a very serious problem, and we should be doing far more to deal with it, treating addiction in our country, bolster our local police forces, mental health resources, and to work with source countries to stop the production and shipment of these dangerous drugs. This has not been a partisan issue. In fact, it is an issue where, when I served in the House, there was a Republican and Democratic collective action to provide treatment that has -- it is providing real-world help in real time, to folks in your state and mine.
Laws matter, and the Constitution matters. If the President does want to start a war, if he wants to put America's troops in harm's way, he needs to seek authorization from Congress. As my colleagues and I know too well, the United States has a very unfortunate history of wars, forever wars started by Presidents who misrepresented the facts, from the USS Maine incident used to justify the war against Spain, to the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution incident to justify the Vietnam War, 60,000 young Americans killed, to President Bush's stretching of the facts about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to launch a disastrous forever war. In each of these cases -- in each of these cases, majorities of our predecessors on in very Senate floor abdicated their responsibility to question the President's intentions and justifications for war. That is why I hope that each of my colleagues, each of us here, will join me in questioning the President's legal basis to carry out these killings and to potentially launch attacks against one or more South American countries. We should demand that Congress assert its constitutional obligation to determine where and why the United States goes to war.
You know, as I mentioned, we all hate the scourge of drugs. But why are we spending billions of dollars in this effort in Venezuela, while at the same time taking funding away for treatment programs here at home that actually have been proven effective to help the most vulnerable Americans that are actually struggling with addiction to fentanyl and other drugs? The Department of Justice has also diverted thousands of Drug Enforcement Administration funds and other law enforcement personnel from their critical missions to carry out the President's immigration agenda. Yet the Department has inexplicably shut down the Organized Crime and Drug Enforcement Task Force, which has been effective in dismantling thousands of criminal organizations and unilaterally the administration has terminated hundreds of grants that do provide critical funding to state and local law enforcement, folks on the ground, in the community, helping folks struggling with addiction and helping law enforcement get to the sellers of those terrible drugs. In fact, the administration's fiscal year 2026 budget would slash the High-Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas Program by more than a third, from 298 million to 196 million. Under the direction of Attorney General Bondi, federal drug prosecutions -- I have no idea how this happened, but federal drug prosecutions have dropped to the lowest level in decades, a fact I find shocking. So when the President claims his new war is about protecting America from drugs, it's a fair question, why are we doing so little? Why are we taking money away from treatment? Why are we taking money away from high-intensity drug enforcement? Why are we not prosecuting more, instead prosecuting so much less?
Mr. President, it's up to the Senate to do its job. We have seen from history that our failure to assert our constitutional responsibility to decide whether to send our military to war has resulted in grievous suffering for the American people and a weakening of our national security.
Mr. President, in asserting our responsibility, at the bare minimum this United States Senate should demand -- should demand to see Attorney General Bondi's legal analysis that the President has used to justify his use of U.S. military to engage in these attacks.